Senoia residents learned Monday night it may soon cost the city nearly $100,000 for radio dispatch service for the city's police officers to use.

The city recently learned Coweta County would no longer supply service for free and the city would have to find an alternative for the police force to phone in field reports.

“With the increase in calls, the county is saying they would have to hire at least five more employees,” said Police Chief Ben Thomas.

It's not emergency phone calls to the county emergency 911 system that are the problem, Thomas said. It's all the radio calls generated from the officers, such as running tags and plugging into the GCIC computer, he said.

The city is left with two options. It can either contract with the county to provide the services or start up its own dispatch system, he added.

The county was originally scheduled to stop the service in July, but Mayor Joan Trammell said the city now has until January to figure out a solution.

Starting its own system might make sense, since the city could rotate officers to man the radio, but Trammell said a costly computer is needed to tie into the main system at the state level.

“The CAD system costs $150,000. This is not something we were anticipating,” she said.

Councilman Robert Hannah asked if the city could possibly contract with the city of Newnan to provide the service, but Thomas said that is not feasible.

“They're on a different frequency. It would cause too many problems switching between frequencies for regular calls and getting other information,” he said.

Trammell asked the council to evaluate the problem and be ready to come to a solution before the end of the year.

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